Hunt Lake Manitoba Narrows

Canadians, by a small margin, favour scrapping long gun registration, which hasn’t worked the way it was intended.

Once again, the gun registry is a political issue in Canada.

Tories want registration abolished for long guns — shotguns and hunting rifles — while the Liberals (as ordered by Michael Ignatieff) want it kept, but to make failure to register a gun a non-criminal, ticketing offense.

When gun registration was implemented in 1993 by the Liberal government of Jean Chretien (Bill C-68), the Canadian public was told it would cost $2 million — the difference between what the government paid and what licensing or registration fees would bring in.

By the end of that decade, it was apparent costs had reached $1 billion and rising, with no appreciable decline in the use of firearms in crimes. More significant is the goal of registering every firearm in Canada, largely aimed at reducing crime by making every gun traceable, has been a failure.

In 1974, prior to mandatory gun registration, the justice department figured 10 million guns were owned by Canadians. By 1994, a year after registration, it was estimated there were 7 million guns in Canada.

Does that indicate a 30% decline in gun ownership over 20 years when the population increased by some 40%? Nope. What it indicates is many people didn’t register their long guns, possibly fearing confiscation would be next, or simply mistrusting government intentions.

Whatever the reason, a huge percentage of Canadians who own unregistered guns are un-convicted criminals, which explains why Ignatieff wants to decriminalize failure to register.

Police chiefs (as opposed to police members) publicly support gun registration. Rank and file cops are not so politically correct, and have doubts.

Homicide and suicide rates over the years tend to argue against firearm registration as an inhibiting factor. After firearms registration, Canada’s suicide rate was relatively stable, with a decrease of some 20% in suicide by guns, but a similar increase of suicide “by other means.” Suicide with a gun can be impetuous and messy, but all suicides are fatal, and statistically are relatively constant year after year.

Homicides remain relatively the same before and after gun controls — firearms used in homicides are in the 30% range, with hand guns (banned or registered since 1934) by far the favoured weapon of murder.

Interestingly, Canada and Australia, both with gun controls, have roughly the same homicide rate per 100,000 of population (1.57), but Canadians are twice as likely as Australians to use a gun to murder someone.

In the U.S. the homicide ratio per 100,000 of population is three times higher than in Canada — but murders are six times more likely to be with a gun.

The private member’s bill (C-391) by Manitoba Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner squeezed through two readings (164-137) with the support of a handful of rural Liberal MPs.

Michael Ignatieff “ordering” all Liberal MPs to vote against it on third reading poses an interesting dilemma if there’s an election. Polls show Canadians, by a small margin, favour scrapping gun registration, which hasn’t worked the way it was intended.

Hand guns and automatic assault weapons are the real danger, while the shotgun and hunting rifle are part of the Canadian heritage. Many law-abiding citizens have been branded criminals because they haven’t registered these guns.

That, surely, is a reason to change a bad, unenforceable law.